


oh lover, won't you give me a sign

by pixelsteve



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Post-Canon, Rey has a lot of feelings, as in Post-TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 04:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21368086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixelsteve/pseuds/pixelsteve
Summary: It’s a never-ending push and pull between them.basically 1113 of me being in my feelings about rey & kylo.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	oh lover, won't you give me a sign

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to (and beta'd by) the OG, my one and only, the best friend in the world @rose-colored-candies

_ It’s a never-ending push and pull between them. _

She thought it had ended after Crait – their connection – she had almost managed to convince herself that it did. But he’d stayed with her, in some corner of her mind, waiting, a constant presence. He’s hurt, she can sense it. After all, she rejected him twice already. The first time, back on Starkiller base, left a mark on him, mentally and physically, an ever-present reminder of what she’d done to him. She’d bested him, had been more than an equal in that moment. Rey had burned like a star, shining so much brighter than him, and almost threatening to set the sky alight with her fury. 

In the end, the icy ground underneath them split open to divide them, interrupting her before she could deliver the final blow. It had split like Luke’s lightsaber did, torn between the both of them in Snoke’s throne room. After she woke up, she would have had the opportunity to strike him down – to kill the new Supreme leader with one swift blow – yet she didn’t. 

Instead she left him, alone and unconscious, and without looking back. The bond – it had given both of them a sense of belonging. They’d latched onto each other, ready to heal the wounds they’ve been living with for so long that they’d almost gotten used to their dull, persistent pain. It had ripped them open yet again, violently and without any kind of warning, when she had turned against him – when she had to reject him anew and leave him alone in the darkness. 

There are days when anger predominates his emotions, raw and crackling like an unstable current of electricity. Those are the days when she knows that he takes it out on himself, the days when he tries to immerse himself deeper in the darkness. Yet, he doesn’t succeed. He can never quite get rid of the pull to the light. It persists, even after he spent years in the darkness, and it’s still threatening to tear him apart. Turning from Snoke hadn’t been enough to start this process, that’s what she knows now. The pull to the dark still affects him, too, stronger than she thought it would, making his choice more difficult than it appeared to be, at first. She can’t do the work for him. In the end, he has to be willing to change. 

She knows he’s not a bad person. He never was. He’d been a scared child, manipulated and abused by a malignant power, who grew up to be a man, trapped in his inner turmoil. She, who had been left and sold, has compassion for him. She doesn’t understand him completely, not yet, but at least she is trying to figure him out, piece by piece and she is not giving up. However difficult it may be, she is going to wait for him. Of course, she knows that he has to be held responsible for the damage he’s done. There is no way that redemption will come easy to him, it never does for people like him. But working through the pain, the suffering and loss that he’s caused, even though it’s going to be painful, will ultimately lead to healing.

She needs to heal, too. 

It’s hard to deal with the truth after holding on to hope for so long. She is alone – she’s been alone ever since her parents left her in the desert, with no other choice than to work for Unkar Plutt or to die. Maybe she will return to that place one day, to the rusted AT-AT she used to call her home, where she dreamt about the island and hope and a sense of purpose. Maybe she’ll return to that place when the memories stop feeling like glass shards piercing her skin and instead turn into faint scars, like the one on her arm.

He’d known. 

When he’d gotten into her head, back on Starkiller Base, he’d seen it all. So had she. Pushing back, she’d witnessed the anger and the pain and the fear deep inside of him – all those feelings they share. She bared a part of herself to him as much as he did to her, in the short time where they had been something different than enemies, something more.

She’s not sure what they are now. The others expect her to hate him, to turn away from him and brand him as someone who is undeserving of the possibility to come home. She’s hiding it from them, from her friends and members of her cause, that part of her is, in fact, still intertwined with those hidden, broken parts of him, afraid of what might come of it, if they do happen to find out one day. After all, the past shows how they had forsaken him after they deemed him to be a danger – after they deemed him to be lost completely, even when the darkness hadn’t taken as much root in him yet, as it has now. 

It still scares her – that darkness. Not his, but her own. She can feel the pull of it, the allure of it. It would be easy to give into it. There had been voices whispering to her, on Starkiller Base, on Ahch-To, feeding into her anger and her confusion. She’d allowed herself to fall into it, briefly, hoping to find out more about herself – hoping to find some sense of belonging. Instead, she’d looked into her own eyes, seen her reflection in the cave and she’d never felt more alone than in that moment. He had been there for her afterwards, his presence calm and steady. He’d shed tears for her and identified with the pain she’d felt. 

His touch burned itself into her skin, so deep, that she doubts the memory of it will ever leave her. It left a scar that only she can see, unlike the one scorched on his face. She’s confident that he’s sharing that experience – that feeling – especially since it's been apparent to her that he’d believed her when she told him it wasn’t too late to come back. Sometimes, when she can feel him, in the back of her mind, it’s what she wants to tell him. He can come back, still.

She’ll be there when he does. After all, Rey has always been good at waiting. 

Maybe - the push and pull will change someday, maybe it will cease to exist, making space for something more peaceful, for something warm. A place where they can find belonging. 

In the grey, the quiet, the -

_ Balance. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> i'm @pixelsteve on tumblr!


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